Pornstars’ War on Onlyfans tracks out
The 23-year-old woman in mini skirt stands with her arm hooked around an 82-year-old man with walking chair and burgundy cardigan. They are in a senior residence. The woman, porn star Lily Phillips, smiles at the camera and suggests that they have been with each other: « I gave him a wonderful moment! »
Whether her claim is true, the example is telling the escalated attention war that is going on between young sex workers online.
Primarily, two British profiles, Lily Phillips born in 2001 and Bonnie Blue, were born in 1999, who compete in the stretch of boundaries.
After the former stated that she was with 101 men in one day, Blue countered with claiming to have been with 1,057 men on one day. They have also challenged each other to walk around town with semen on their face, to have anal sex with as many men as they can for a day, or to take as many male innocents as possible in a day.
When Bonnie Blue published a post on Instagram that suggested she was pregnant, Phillips did the same.
The struggle to arouse strongest emotions has not arisen from a vacuum. Competition in the porn industry has often degenerated in bizarre competition moments. But above all, the whole thing is reinforced by the culture on social media, where challenges – « Challenges » – as a way to get viral and reach many viewers.
Initially, it was about harmless assignments on Youtube such as performing the Dance Harlem Shake (2013) or pouring ice water over your head (2014). Then it escalated, in increasingly ethically cloudy or physically harmful activities. As should Breaker Challenge (2020), where two people are tricking a third to jump and then pull away their legs so that they fall head stup. Or Fire Challenge that became big on Tiktok 2021, where you set fire to different body parts and then extinguish it.
It is the so -called attention economy drawn to its utmost tip – that entertainment must constantly become more moderate, since so many things now compete for our attention.
Within this culture, on the Onlyfans platform, users can pay for their content (which is usually pornographic), Lily Phillips and Bonnie Blue have grown their celebrity.
– It is important to remember that this is on another level, and in many ways deeply much more political than other challenges. Here it is basically about women’s views, how women look at themselves and how others look at them, says Irena Pozar, editor -in -chief of the Weekly Review and chronicler for Aftonbladet.
Bonnie Blue became famous 2023 when she visited different universities in Australia to lie with teenage men in front of camera. She was considered early controversial: her participation in the British TV morning program « This Morning » in 2024, where she claimed to earn SEK 7 million a month to have sex with students, led to 188 notifications to the British Review Board.
It was in these films that she started collaborating with Lily Phillips. Initially, they were friends, participated in each other’s films and made both careers in the sex industry.
But when Phillips announced the intention to set a world record in being with most men in one day rivalry – because Blue felt the idea was hers, and therefore stolen.
So their race began on attention. The 47 -minute YouTub documentary « I Slept With 100 Men In One Day », where a filmmaker follows when Phillip’s fans for payment may participate in relay sex with her, was very much talked about.
The documentary currently has 10 million views and was also rewritten in Swedish media. In particular, many reacted to the stage where Phillips, exhausted at the end of the day, breaks down and begins to cry before the camera. She hardly remembers any of what happened during the day, she turned off, experienced everything as unreal, she says in the film.
Ann Heberlein described it in Svenska Dagbladet as « a tragic mourning », while Irena Pozar in Aftonbladet called the project « Irrational and destructive ».
– It all feels very broken, sad and desperate. Their attempts to wipe away what they do with « they love it » is probably no one who really believes in. If you do that, it is because you have a political agenda where women should primarily act as sex objects, says Pozar.
Both Blue and Phillips has called their experiments expression of self -determination, a way for them to exercise sexual freedom. In an interview, Phillips says: « I think this is fun, this is what I enjoy. Nobody forces me to do it. »
They both identify themselves as feminists, often mention their financial independence and how much money they earn.
As soon as money is involved, and demand exists, people become more willing to compromise with their « free will ». Onlyfans do nothing for women’s sexual liberation
Regardless of their personal motives, it is not possible to round how much it is based on a hyper -commercialization of sex. With the entry of technology, many old boundaries have been lowered or demolished completely. The oversexualized digital existence described as An dehumanized « sex extremism », where everything can be bought.
When people turn into goods, competition between them is not just about being seen – it becomes a matter of survival. This is how the American social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff writes in his book « Supervisory Capitalism » (2019).
In other words: The women’s financial situation is determined directly by the algorithm that must be constantly fertilized, and without it they do not exist in an over -saturated market.
Emelie Roslund is a journalist and program manager for P1’s « factory », a pod on how technology affects people’s lives. She says that Blues and Phillip’s content contain several ingredients that are rewarded by the algorithms: beautiful, blonde women, sex, great commitment and a type of content that constantly goes the step further.
– But of course we would not have seen this if there was no economy in it.
The question of money also includes free will. Because if women’s increasingly serious actions are a prerequisite for them to be seen and survive financially, does it happen completely voluntarily? In the debate about Onlyfans is often made the parable of prostitutionand that the sale of women’s bodies takes place during a liberation deck.
– As soon as money is involved, and demand exists, people become more willing to compromise with their « free will ». Onlyfans do nothing for women’s sexual liberation, says Emilie Roslund.
The journalist and the author Kristoffer Viita, whose novel « Demon Time » takes place in the American Onlyfans environment, says that women’s extreme approach shows how the confirmation from digital platforms can be seen as a way to replace a partner.
– You have « outsourced » the feeling of being hired for an anonymous and paying mass. We seem to be at the peak of a normalization that has been going on since pandemic, a development where the best thing about life – sex – lost much of its erotic charge.
He agrees that the development shapes a skewed view of sex and intimacy. But the conservative voices that condemn Onlyfans and its profiles should recognize their own role, he says. For example, the Trumpnian think tank The Heritage Foundation in the United States believes that pornography should not be protected by freedom of speech.
– They refuse to see themselves in the mirror when it comes to what hypercapitalist politics they have voted for. The fact that sex has been commissioned according to a « does it itself » model is just a natural building block in the unregulated world domination of the tech giants.
Some have also compared Phillips and Blues many plays with Donald Trump’s media logic: to incorporate into a reality docus soap where everyone is held on the toes about what the next startling section will be about.
Irena Pozar believes that the spirit they operate within consists of many interwoven tendencies – such as a backlash against feminism after metoo, and a hot hunt for the politically correct – Woke – In general.
– This is a symptom of a temporary change in our culture and our values: what we see is the result of a technological development, an attention economy but also that we live in a time of post-woke And in a feminist backlash.
Men are the primary consumers and they are willing to spend a lot of money on content that makes their fantasies reality
Sex extremism creates norms where girls and young women will end up ever further from boys and young men, she continues. It risks creating destructive relationships and polarization in the most intimate and basically loving.
But not only the technological development or an antiprogressive policy carries up growth. In the debate, Phillips and Blue are often blamed, on Elon Musk’s platform X they are called « viruses », and that they should be « put in prison »-more rarely is it spoken of the men who pay for, queue up and enable sex extremism.
– Men are the primary consumers and they are willing to spend a lot of money on content that makes their fantasies reality. Here they get problematic sex, women who love to fuck and a confirmation that the happy whore is for real, says Emilie Roslund.
Exactly what the extreme The rivalry and development should result in, how far it can go, is difficult to say.
But just as the commuter movement of history has now turned into anti -feminism, it might as well turn back in a protest against it, says Irena Pozar.
– I believe and hope that we will soon see a backlash, as what is now happening with, for example, Blue and Phillips in itself is a reaction to women’s actual liberation and feminist progress.
